Elderly and exploited

Low-wage workers often subjected to unreasonable rules

Letter from Arthur Lim

I READ with sympathy the letter from Ms Jessie Chong about her father’s experience upon landing a job as a cleaner (“Clean up treatment of cleaners”, Oct 19).

I am not surprised such treatment exists and could be commonplace, especially for senior citizens employed in the cleaning industry.

I have met some elderly cleaners, working for a pittance, who told me that they are expected to remain standing throughout their work hours, even if their assigned areas are spotlessly clean.

I once asked one such cleaner: “The toilet is so well maintained and there is nothing more to clean. Why don’t you just take a seat and rest for a while, and get up to clean the area when the need arises?”

His answer: “No, I can’t because if the supervisor sees me I’ll be fined $50.” When asked, he told me he was paid about $800 a month.

Imagine, if he sat down 16 times in the course of a month, he wouldn’t be paid a cent. What right does the cleaning company have to impose such a penalty?

Of course, everyone likes a clean toilet but expecting a cleaner to stand still like a robot is clearly thoughtless exploitation.

The authorities encourage the elderly to work into their golden years but more can be done to address such abuse.

There must be legislation in place to ensure employers do not have the right to arbitrarily impose financial penalties. If such penalties are imposed there should be a limit to the fine, based on the monthly salary.

Many employers get away with such rules because many of their workers do not know the legality of such practices, thereby opening the door to abuse.

The authorities should take the lead to ensure such abuse is not condoned and act on it rigorously when a complaint is made about a company.

A million protest pensions plan as fuel shortages bite

A million protest pensions plan as fuel shortages bite

PARIS (AFP) - – Strikes threatening to paralyse France's economy looked set to rumble on into Wednesday after a million people took to the street for their right to retire at 60 and fuel shortages began to bite.

Clashes erupted between youths and riot police in several towns Tuesday and shops in the city of Lyon were looted as workers and students came out in force around the country to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's unpopular reform.

Sarkozy refused to back down however and leading unions in some sectors including airports called for stoppages to continue on Wednesday, while oil refineries remained blocked, hit by a week of strikes.

The DGAC aviation authority said a quarter of flights from Orly, Paris's second-biggest airport, would be cancelled on Wednesday morning but did not detail further disruption at the main hub, Charles de Gaulle.

Facts: France's biggest demos

Around one in three flights at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and regional airports were cancelled on Tuesday, while one in three filling stations ran out of fuel, the government said.

The latest day of protests, the sixth since September, drew around 1.1 million people onto the streets, police said, slightly fewer than the 1.23 million on the last comparable day, October 12.

The CGT, France's biggest union, told AFP it estimated overall turnout at 3.5 million, equal to its estimate for October 12. Unions' estimates have habitually been several times higher than those of police.

With more than 200 protests on Tuesday, all 12 French oil refineries shut down by strikes and truckers blocking roads, Sarkozy instructed the cabinet to draw up a plan to stop France grinding to a standstill.

Environment and Transport Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said that "a little under 4,000 petrol stations are awaiting deliveries." There are around 12,500 filling stations in France.

French fuel and heating federation FF3C said the "extremely worrying" situation "should definitely be called a shortage", while the International Energy Agency said France has "sufficient stocks" to deal with the situation.

Authorities in Normandy requisitioned 12 petrol stations for use by rescue and emergency services, while Prime Minister Francois Fillon said a third of departments or local administrations were experiencing fuel shortages.

Fillon chaired a meeting with several ministers and oil industry officials on how to deal with the crisis and ministers later held talks with Sarkozy.

Fillon's office said the government would ensure access to fuel depots, many of which are blocked by strikers, and that distributors would pool their fuel and trucks to help needy stations.

The interior minister promised tough action as clashes erupted anew outside a secondary school in Nanterre, near Paris, where youths burned a car and threw rocks at riot police for the second day in a row.

Police fired tear gas and arrested nine youth protestors in Lyon who had overturned cars and set one alight. At least five shops were later looted, police said.

Nine people were arrested Tuesday in Paris, police said.

The ministry said that 1,158 troublemakers had been arrested at demonstrations since the start of the week, 163 of them on Tuesday morning.

The powerful CGT union's transport section called for their strike action to be renewed on Wednesday, encompassing airport staff, air traffic controllers, public transport workers and employees of national railways operator SNCF.

Unions want to force Sarkozy to abandon a bill to raise the minimum retirement age to 62, which is in the final days of its journey through a parliament in which the right-wing leader enjoys a comfortable majority.

Most French back the current protests, with a poll published Monday in the popular Le Parisien daily showing that 71 percent of those asked expressed either support or sympathy for the movement.

A poll published Tuesday showed that Sarkozy's approval rating dropped this month to its lowest in three years at 30 percent, two percentage points less than when the main pension protests started in September.

$104 toilet paper tames $1.7-trillion tiger

The shame miring the Commonwealth Games may just be the catalyst India needs to turn its economy around

William Pesek 

In our technology-driven world, no metric is rawer than that of human bodily functions.

Sadly for India, it is one that keeps cropping up.

Toilet shortages leave all too many of India’s 1.2 billion people relieving themselves outside. Illness, lost productivity and other consequences of fouled water and inadequate sewage treatment are literally crimping gross domestic product.

Toilets have also played a role in the Commonwealth Games, which end today.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wanted the event to “signal to the world that India is rapidly marching ahead with confidence”. The media focused instead on filthy bathrooms in the athletes’ village and 100-roll packs of toilet paper for US$80 ($104).

We are talking about a nation in which 828 million people live on less than US$2 a day. An Indian making that could buy two rolls of Commonwealth Games toilet paper with a day’s wages. The mess shines a bright spotlight on the shortcomings that hold back a US$1.3-trillion ($1.7-trillion) economy.

Yet all this bad press might be exactly what India needs. It could generate enough shame to catalyse officials in New Delhi to get serious about fixing the nation’s economy. It also may just be the shove in the direction of private-sector leadership that India so clearly lacks.

Shoddy construction, excessive work delays, claims of tainted swimming-pool water that some athletes say caused “Delhi Belly” and a dengue-fever outbreak are products of the forces squandering the benefits of India’s 8.8-per-cent growth.

Smart and well-intentioned as he is, Mr Singh has made little progress since 2004.

Is that about to change?

S’pore’s tax rate among lowest in Asia-Pacific

Julie Quek

juliequek@mediacorp.com.sg

SINGAPORE

Its latest Individual Income Tax and Social Security Rate Survey showed Singapore’s top tax rate has remained at a relatively low 20 per cent for the past two years.

That is slightly higher than Hong Kong, which has the lowest tax rate at 15 per cent this year.

The income bracket of US$231,716 ($302,297) at which the highest tax rate takes effect in Singapore, ranks third highest among the 86 countries covered by the survey. This means that Singapore’s residents would bear the highest rate of personal tax — only if their taxable income level exceeds $320,000 based on current exchange rates.

Singapore and Hong Kong are also the most tax attractive countries among the key financial centres of the world, the survey said.

And as tax rates increases across Europe, countries like Singapore and Hong Kong may seem more tax attractive now than ever, said Mr BJ Ooi, partner and head of International Executive Services at KPMG in Singapore.

Increases in tax rates this year came mainly from Europe, possibly led by the attempt to increase tax revenue and address budget shortfalls.

The UK led the highest tax hike by raising its top rate from 40 per cent last year to the current 50 per cent. Globally, the average tax rate increased by 0.3 per cent.

KPMG said this shows a turnaround from the decline in top personal income tax rates seen in the last seven years.

Latin America’s average top rates increased by 0.8 per cent this year, while the European Union’s average rates went up by 0.3 per cent over the past year.

“Tax authorities are under increasing pressure to identify and secure greater revenues.

In response, they are becoming increasingly sophisticated and rigorous in the framing and application of the tax rules,” Mr Ooi added.— The country’s tax rate remains one of the lowest in the Asia-Pacific region according to a study by KPMG.

A way to root out bad teachers?

Naming and shaming those who fail our children is now a viable option

Robert Colvile

Instead, we have what Americans refer to as the ‘dance of the lemons’ — the recycling of poor teachers from school to school, sent on their way with impeccable references because their bosses are desperate to be rid of them.

zerO  sUm  gAmE

Asia is richer but still leads world in poverty

Region home to two-thirds of world’s poor

UNITED NATIONS

The report on Asia’s progress in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) was issued at a three-day summit, which started on Monday. It was attended by more than 140 heads of state or government at the UN headquarters in New York. There are five years left before the MDG deadline of 2015.

“One of the region’s greatest MDG successes has been a reduction in the number of people living on less than US$1.25 ($1.67) a day from 1.5 billion to 947 million between 1990 and 2005,” the report said.

“However, the region remains home to two-thirds of the world’s poor and hungry, with one in six malnourished, and it has been slow to reduce child mortality and to improve maternal health,” the report added.

Mr Ajay Chhibber, UN development chief for the Asia-Pacific, also named the lack of opportunities for women as a major cause of widespread poverty.

UN members resolved a decade ago to reduce extreme poverty by half, to ensure that every child finishes primary school and to halt the HIV/Aids pandemic.

They also vowed to reduce the number of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth by three-quarters, the number of children who die before their fifth birthday by two-thirds, and to halve the number of people without access to clean water and basic sanitation — all by 2015. They also set goals to promote equality for women, protect the environment, increase development aid and open the global trading and financial system.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said the effort to reach the key development goals by 2015 could still be met if world leaders provide the necessary money and political will.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero also stepped up to push for a new global financial tax, adding pressure on the world’s wealthy countries to contribute more in the drive to eradicate poverty and improve child and maternal health.

In response to the mounting calls for money to fight poverty, European leaders offered one billion euros ($1.75 billion) yesterday. The huge sum was offered by EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.

“The final MDG story is yet to be told. All countries still have five years to choose the most promising paths — and tilt the balance decisively on the side of success,” the report concluded. — Asia has slashed the number of people living in extreme poverty but leads the world in malnourishment and is struggling to meet ambitious development goals set at the United Nations (UN), a UN report said.AGENCIES